Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico [Hardcover]

Peter Kuper (Author), Martin Solares (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

Painting a vivid, personal portrait of social and political upheaval in Oaxaca, Mexico, this unique memoir employs comics, bilingual essays, photos, and sketches to chronicle the events that unfolded around a teachers' strike and led to a seven-month siege. When award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper and his wife and daughter moved to the beautiful, 15th-century colonial town of Oaxaca in 2006, they planned to spend a quiet year or two enjoying a different culture and taking a break from the U.S. political climate under the Bush administration. What they hadn't counted on was landing in the epicenter of Mexico's biggest political struggle in recent years. Timely and compelling, this extraordinary firsthand account presents a distinct artistic vision of Oaxacan life, from explorations of the beauty of the environment to graphic portrayals of the fight between strikers and government troops that left more than 20 people dead, including American journalist Brad Will.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Kuper has long been among the most politically engaged and stylistically distinctive artists working in comics, and both qualities take center stage here. This dazzling annotated sketchbook recounts two years Kuper and his family spent living in Oaxaca, Mexico. Anticipating a sojourn from American politics, Kuper instead found himself in a city roiled by a teachers' strike that was violently suppressed by the regional government. He recorded his observations in his sketchbook and in illustrated letters home, crisply reproduced in this bilingual (English and Spanish) book. Kuper's facility with diverse art media shines in early pages covering political action, as colorfully penciled protestors stand against rigidly inked military barricades set against the lush backdrops of Oaxaca. As the populist forces are rapidly suppressed, Kuper records a panoply of further visual impressions: beaches, stores, dogs, vendors, ancient ruins, street art and many, many insects. Throughout, Kuper's letters, rooted in personal observation but clearly intended as eyewitness reports for public consumption, provide helpful context. And if his increasingly profuse style mixing suggests a departure from earlier visual in the book, the final observations about a beautiful, merciless natural order obliquely ratify the political convictions that open the book. (Sept.)
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Review

"Kuper is a colossus; I have been in awe of him for over 20 years. Teachers and students everywhere take heart: Kuper has in these pages born witness to our seemingly endless struggle to educate and to be educated in the face of institutions that really don't give a damn. In this ruined age we need Kuper's unsparing compassionate visionary artistry like we need hope."  —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"Kuper has long been among the most politically engaged and stylistically distinctive artists working in comics, and both qualities take center stage here. An artist at the top of his form."  —Publisher's Weekly

"Fans of comics and art lovers will appreciate Kuper's unusual take on a remarkable place. Recommended for libraries, particularly those with graphic art and design collections, as well as general bookstores."  —Library Journal

"[Kuper's] attempt to escape the last years of the Bush Administration led him to relocate to a town that turned out to be under martial law, in an area plagued by riptides, ecotourists, and stray dogs, all faithfully—and hilariously—documented here."  —New Yorker

"Peter Kuper is undoubtedly the modern master whose work has refined the socially relevant comic to the highest point yet achieved."  —Newsarama.com

"The book, its text in English and Spanish, is beautiful, a real production: The textured, embossed cover evokes Mexican tiles, giving this Diario de Oaxaca elegant gravity and permanence."  —Boston Globe

"Maybe Peter Kuper’s greatest accomplishment as an artist.  It flatters all of his strengths as an artist and limits his flaws."  —The Comics Journal by Rob Clough

"In the hands of an illustrator with such creative gifts, Oaxaca is a brilliant dreamscape whose bugs and vegetation are as visually appealing as its protest graffiti and wild dogs."  —World Literature in Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: PM Press; Bilingual edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604860715
• ISBN-13: 978-1604860719
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Embedded Cartoonist as Witness, December 5, 2009

By 

Kevin McCloskey (Kutztown, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico (Hardcover)

There is a Kurt Vonnegut story where NASA sponsors a poetry contest seeking a poet so the next person to reach a new planet might say something profound. NASA, it seems, was disappointed when an astronaut landed on Mars and said, "this looks just like my driveway back in Houston.'

Diario de Oaxaca brought that story to mind, because history happened in Oaxaca in 2006. There were months of barricades and demonstrations met with lethal force by the police. We are fortunate that the gifted artist Peter Kuper was on the ground to bear witness to these events. Kuper's first-hand account is drawn in the form of simple sketches, but taken as a whole, his diary is a profound and moving document.

Don't expect a traditional graphic novel with box after box of sequential drawings advancing the story. As the subtitle says this is a sketchbook. Mostly pictures, it is perhaps 15% text, and the text is presented in both Spanish and English. This book is being simultaneously published in Mexico, so there is a practical reason for this. The bilingual text, however, also demonstrates Kuper's evident respect for the language and culture of Mexico.

While most of the book deals with the city of Oaxaca, not all is turmoil. There are some quirky, quiet days and there are side trips to the beach, the pyramids, small towns, and even the monarch butterfly preserves.

One might ask, what is the point of sketchbook journalism in a digital age? I'd suggest seeing the actual marks a person makes alongside their written words offers the reader a special insight. We get the sense that we know Peter Kuper, that we are in the company of a friend, and that our friend is a reliable witness to history.

Highly recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an unusual book: part graphic novel, part political treatise, part travelogue, and part art/sketchbook, November 16, 2010

By 

GraphicNovelReporter.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico (Hardcover)

I have made a point of reading just about everything that Peter Kuper (Speechless, World War 3 Illustrated) has written and drawn over the last 15 years, so I was surprised to learn that I had missed this book when it first came out in September 2009. But once I discovered my oversight, I quickly resolved it, and I'm glad I did.

Diario de Oaxaca is an unusual book: part graphic novel, part political treatise, part travelogue, and part art book-slash-sketchbook. The book grew from the two years Kuper and his family lived in Mexico, from July 2006 to June 2007, where they fled to avoid life under the Bush administration, America's consumer culture, and Kuper's own workaholic schedule. But their arrival in Oaxaca City and nearby San Felipe del Agua also coincided with a massive teacher's strike that, in the coming months, would boil over into violence and bloodshed.

The book is "told" chronologically, if "told" is the right word, starting with a preface by Kuper, then the first of several sketchbook pages drawn as they arrived in Mexico, along with Kuper's written commentary on the illustrations. (The text throughout the book is presented in both English and Spanish, in a manner similar to most art books.)

Although the violence of the teacher's strike is still a couple of months away at this point, the tension can already be felt as early as page 24 when anti-government posters and sign-carrying protesters start showing up in the backgrounds of the scenes Kuper draws.

Kuper and his family settle in peacefully, but it doesn't take long before tensions grow. Federal troops show up in October, and Kuper's sketchbooks are suddenly full of soldiers in riot gear, military vehicles, and barricaded streets. Rocks are being thrown (by both sides), vehicles burned, and helicopters flown overhead. On November 2, the first gunshots rang out.

Strangely, by the turn of the year 2007, all signs of the protest have been erased. Some of the teachers' demands had been met and they returned to work. Minus a few hundred wounded and arrested protesters, of course.

With most of the tension eased, Kuper is able to settle into being an artist in Oaxaca. He draws the local flora and fauna, the architecture, the Dia de los Muertos skulls that pervade the culture, and the people. The family travels to Mexico City, the ruins at Teotihuacán, and other cities. Meanwhile, the US State Department lifts its ban on travel to Oaxaca, freeing up the local economy. Through it all, Kuper learns to most important skill: how to relax.

The rest of the book is full of sketchbook drawings, observations, short comics stories, essays on street art and bugs, and more, all punctuated with Kuper's keen eye and sometimes keener wit.

Diario de Oaxaca could very well be Kuper's most accomplished work as an artist. Most of his comics work has traditionally been completed with nontraditional materials, like stencils, airbrushes, and collage. Here he eschews most of those techniques and instead turns to ink, watercolors, colored pencils, mixed media, and even photography. It's a vibrant book, as colorful as the culture Kuper is depicting.

Around the middle of the book, Kuper writes, "I've discovered that by observing and drawing my surroundings, I'm slowing the passage of time." The same thing happens while reading it. Crack the covers and immense yourself in another world.
-- John R. Platt

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Visual experience, July 15, 2011

By 

S Sylvester "Optimist" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diario de Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico (Hardcover)

OK, Spy vs Spy is great - this is another side of Peter Kuper I was not aware of. What worked for me is that unlike "graphic novels" or true cartoons, this book was very relaxing... you could look at all the wonderful sketches without the "word bubbles" cluttering the artwork. Then you could read the content at your leisure. I actually read it cover to cover and then went back and studied all the sketching multiple times. This is a very visual experience and should help anyone, myself included, who desires to create their own visual record of a travel experience. I appreciate that Mr. Kuper was thoughtful to create a truly bilingual book - at no extra charge you can practice your Spanish by reading the English and then the Spanish journal entries. Nice work! Oh and the binding is very nice - it keeps with the journal experience.